In studying colonial issue stamps, we wrestle with how a colonial power leaves. Some times the best laid plans go wrong. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
There is a period in a march toward independence that this stamp represents well. The colonials are still in power, but there is an effort to make a place in the institutions for the locals. This is well intended. However some of the institutions will have no relevance to locals. Thus the craft worker on the stamp from 1969, nor the Papuan craft worker of today will not have any awareness of the International Labour Association, which this stamp celebrates.
The stamp today is issue A62, a 5 cent stamp issued by the Territory of Papua and New Guinea on September 24th, 1969. It was a single stamp issue celebrating the 50th anniversary of the International Labour Organization. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used.
Papua New Guinea is a very diverse place where English is the language of government and Christianity widely practiced. The vast majority of the people are indigenous Papuans with many different tribal languages and religious practices. Perhaps not the ideal place to launch a political system based on Australia but that is what was intended. Australia became the colonial power after World War II. A several year campaign had been fought during that war by the Australians to remove the Japanese. More than 7000 Australians died in that ultimately successful effort.
An Australian Brigadier General Donald Cleland was appointed administrator. He set out making places for locals in the institutions and set up a local assembly. His wife Rachel worked with local chapters of the YWCA and the Girl Guides. Donald Cleland ended the ban on natives drinking alcohol. The World Bank was invited in to devise a development plan that was funded mostly by Australia. As independence neared, Cleland stayed on in retirement and served as chancellor of the University of Papua New Guinea and of the local archdiocese of the Anglican Church.
Independence was achieved in 1975 with Michael Somare being the first prime minister. He was educated first by the occupying Japanese and then later by the Australians and became a teacher. He became an advocate for independence and pointed to the problem of local artifacts not being preserved. The colonial authority named him to the board chair of the national Museum.
As Prime Minister, things did not go so well. There was never stability with constantly shifting alliances and no confidence votes between the same few people including Somare. The artifacts proved not really to be important to him as the national Museum became derelict post independence. There have been constant corruption charges that the powerful refuse to respond to. Mr. Somare sneered at the house that was given to the country by Australia for the prime minister as not grand enough. He has since bought a series of homes that he refuses to say how he paid for. Australia attempted to send police and administrators to see that their aid was not squandered but they were refused entry into the country.
The way I have written this might make Cleland look good and Somare look bad. This could be thought of as being an apologist of colonialism. While I feel it is not debatable that Cleland occupies a higher moral ground the problem really is how the same they are. Somare may be ethnically local and sometimes adorns himself in the trappings of a local tribesman, he is no closer to the average Papuan than Cleland. He is a product of the colonial system that Australia imposed. That he resents it and games it for more aid is not surprising. That the locals tolerate his ilk is the real surprise.
Well my drink is empty so I will open the discussion in the below comment section. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.